The Cancer within…
“We have a cancer within, close to the presidency, that is growing. It is growing daily and it's going to become incurable if not excised".
- White House Counsel to President Nixon, John Dean
By Gregg Wall (8-13-2025)
August 9th rolled by this summer, like it does every summer, with little notice or fanfare, but for me it’s always been a special day. For August 9th illustrates what a functioning American government, warts and all, looks like, led by moral men and women, who place country before party, nation before a president, the American people first. August 9th, 1974, of course, is the date Richard Milhous Nixon resigned from office. On August 7th, three members of Congress, led by Barry Goldwater, explained to President Nixon that he no longer enjoyed the support of the Congress and would be impeached. Nixon, having already put the nation through a great ordeal, did the correct thing and left office, handing the reins of power to Gerald Ford.
I’ve always thought the nation should commemorate both the good and the bad times… but is August 9th really a somber date, when it so clearly demonstrates that men, even in the highest office in the land, are fully capable putting politics and egos aside and doing the correct & moral thing on behalf of the nation and its people?
This year, as I thought of Nixon and what he must have gone through, his final days in the White House praying with Henry Kissinger, I couldn’t help but think of the parallels with the current monster in the White House, Donald J. Trump. Trump, who could conceivably do the right thing, w/out threat of possible impeachment, might spare the nation three years and approximately four more months of abject failure and misery… and simply, as Nixon had done, do the correct and honorable thing and resign.
The parallels between the two men are striking, eerily so. Both presidents faced inflation and rising unemployment, both presidents were mired in deeply unpopular wars, wars both men had pledged to extricate America from. Nixon and Trump pressured and railed at their respective Federal Reserve Chairmen for lower interest rates. Nixon pulled the US off the gold standard and Trump has increasingly introduced and pushed crypto legitimacy upon the United States, while making a fortune. Nixon was caught up in the Watergate scandal, a break in at the DNC headquarters, and a coverup, while Trump is mired in his very own Epstein scandal, a coverup, with equally damaging repercussions for the last remaining shreds of his dignity & soul. Then as now, Nixon refused to release the White House tapes to Congress… likewise, Trump has fought Congress on the release of the Epstein documents to the public. Epstein documents and materials, possibly, equally as damaging to Trump and the establishment, potentially more so than Nixon’s tapes.
Pretty amazing when you think about it. Two venal men, separated by half century, caught in the damaging crossfire of their very own machinations & personal failings. Watergate self-inflicted, Epstein and that damaging relationship with Trump, et al., also self-inflicted. White House counsel, John Dean, warned Nixon of a cancer on the presidency, a cancer that could ultimately destroy the Nixon administration. Similarly, Trump has what appears to be a highly malignant growth on his own administration in the form of the Epstein scandal. And no matter the number of crises, the wars, Trump’s bobbing and weaving like a fighter on the ropes, Epstein is not likely to go away. Trump’s adversaries know there’s blood in the water. Trump’s adversaries, however, are likely to be reluctant to push for documents release, despite posturing… since the entire establishment, including prominent Dems, Donors, and GOP, very well maybe involved in the pedo scandal. That is, potentially deeply involved in the sexual assault upon underage women and young girls. The public, those that want the truth, however, possess no similar reservations… they want justice, they demand the truth, Trump campaigned on full disclosure. And as this is, allegedly, a government by and for the people, they deserve nothing less.
Could Trump, like Nixon, be forced to resign? As the Kirk assassination revealed this week, America is not the same country it was fifty-one years ago. We are a nation in terminal decline, our congress is cowardly & corrupt and not likely to confront Trump and insist that he resign. The death of Charlie Kirk this week and a review of Kirk’s on-line works demonstrated how much hate, rage, anger, racism, misogyny, and homophobia have become the norm in the United States. Debate and language that would have been unacceptable just two decades ago is now the norm, under the pretense of free speech & reaching out across the divide. It all spells out the coarsening & erosion of American society, if a society even remains. This isn’t the GOP I once recognized, not even the GOP of Dick Cheney and George W Bush. Ugly. And the manner in which the Dem establishment and the MSM dutifully groveled over Kirk’s corpse was absolutely depraved and sickening. Kirk’s body being flown around on Air Force Two… seriously? Clearly, they plan to deify this monster, make a martyr of the Prince of Hate?
Free speech… sure, all for it, but unbridled hate? Nobody should listen to that. And yet, so many young men have. Who does hatred coming out of Kirk’s mouth serve? Well, it serves to divide the nation, it serves to blind, distract, and enrage its consumers & customers, it serves to provide a scapegoat for a failed dereg/libertarian economy, and the hate speech conveniently points anger and rage away from the architects of our destruction: the billionaire class, the banks, private equity firms, and multinationals. The entities and individuals who have looted the nation, destroyed a decent standard of living, and eliminated a great many well-paying jobs under the Policy of Greed.
And so here we are: Nixon, Trump, the growing cancer, and the corpse of Kirk. The far-right salivating and screaming for blood over Kirk’s body; the public baying for the Epstein files. The fact that Kirk’s alleged killer appears to be an Eagle Scout and the quintessential MAGA man means nothing. Trump, like Nixon, will fight to the bitter end or until his body gives up the ghost, whichever comes first. It shouldn’t be this way, but with American leadership in a complete state of moral collapse and demonstrating all manner of cowardice… the US government for sale to the highest bidder… only the people can save us now and the MAGA faithful appear both deeply irrational, wedded to nihilism & tribalism, and devoid of all critical thinking skills. This outcome… a large segment of the population more interested in holding minorities and immigrants responsible for their problems rather than a predatory oligarchy… was very well thought out, engineered, and entirely by design.
In short, brothers and sisters, keep your powder dry, your personal protection close at hand, and stay alert. The tumor has metastasized.
Selah.
Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2025
